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iFame for (Sr?at Amenrana. 



That fortune aided him is true, but it was in the manner she 
favors the pilot, who watching every changing wind, every 
shifting current, makes all subservient to his purpose. 

Napier. 



Frederic H. Wilkins, 

President of the 

Pepperrell Association. 

Everett P. Wheeler ) 

John F. Hill v Committee. 

George B. Leighton ) 



January, 19 lo. 






26 OCT 1 910 



To THE Chancellor 

OF THE University of the 

City of New York. 

The Pepperrell Association, a Society 
incorporated under the laws of the state of 
Maine, and composed of descendants of 
Colonel William Pepperrell, the elder, 
respectfully nominates the name of Sir 
William Pepperrell to be inscribed in 
the Hall of Fame for great Americans. 

The Association respectfully submits 
in support of this nomination, the accom- 
panying memorial. 

The Pepperrell Association, 

by Frederick H. Wilkins, 

President. 

Everett P. Wheeler, 

21 State Street, New York City. 

John F. Hill, 

Augusta, Maine. 

George R. Leighton. 

Monadnock, N. H. 

Committee. 

March 10, 1910. 



/nbcmorial 



In Support of the Nomination of the Name of 
Sir William Pepperrell, to be Inscribed in the Hall 
OF Fame for Great Americans. 

The names that have up to this time been inscribed in the 
Hall of Fame are, with one exception — that of Jonathan 
Edwards — men who achieved their fame after the Declara- 
tion of Independence. It is natural that the lustre of their 
great names should have obscured for a time that of those 
under whose guidance and leadership the thirteen colonies 
attained that strength and mutual understanding, without 
which the revolution would have been a failure, and Ameri- 
can independence impossible. 

But it should never be forgotten that the Constitution of 
the. United States was an evolution. In any just view of 
American history the men who took part in this evolution 
and made its success possible, should not be forgotten. Wash- 
ington, Franklin, Jefferson and Adams are rightly inscribed 
in the Hall of Fame. Their achievements were the legiti- 
mate outgrowth and development of the deeds of the great 
colonials. 

We respectfully submit that of these no one is better en- 
titled to be inscribed in the Hall of Fame than Sir William 
Pepperrell. 

He was the most enterprising and successful colonial 
merchant and one of the most distinguished colonial states- 
men. 

He was the most skilful and successful colonial general. 
Under his leadership regiments from the different colonies 
learned to co-operate against regular troops entrenched 



behind strong fortifications. The veterans of Louisburg 
were the backbone of the New England forces at the be- 
ginning of the revolution. 

He received the highest honor in the gift of his native 
colony — President of the Council. 

He received the highest honors conferred before the rev- 
olution by the British Government upon a colonist. He was 
made a baronet, and a colonel in the British regular army 
and was promoted by successive grades to the rank of 
lieutenant general in that army. 

He was a typical American; typical of the time 
when the exigencies of life were such that a man 
of talent could not limit himself or his intelligence to 
one particular occupation, but when the necessities of the 
situation in which our fathers were placed, compelled him 
to play many parts, which in a later and more complex 
civilization would be filled by different individuals. 

William Pepperrell commenced life as a merchant, and 
a merchant he continued for thirty years. Yet during that 
time he became Chief Justice of the Court of Common 
Pleas in Maine. He was President of His Majesty's Coun- 
cil for the Colony of Massachusetts. As general of the 
colonial forces, he conducted the most successful and bril- 
liant of the campaigns in which the colonists were unaided 
by troops from the mother country. 

What is commonly known as an education — that is to 
say scholastic training — was vouchsafed to few colonials. 
William Pepperrell. like most of the young men of his 
time, had little of this beside reading, writing and arith- 
metic. His father, however, employed an instructor who 
taught him surveying and navigation — the measuring of the 
land, and the tracing of a pathway over the trackless ocean 
— two arts which to a colonist and navigator were essen- 
tial. His frame was hardened by constant activity in the 
open air, by contests with the savages, by explorations in 
the woods of Maine, by voyages on the sea. He met in the 



course of these adventures all sorts and conditions of men, 
from the Governor in the old mansion at Portsmouth, which 
Longfellow has immortalized, to the Indian in the forest. 
His mind and heart were enlarged by the spirit of progress 
which filled the breast of every active colonist, and the 
capacity to command, which distinguished him throughout 
his life, showed itself at an early age. 

As partner in his father's commercial enterprises he ex- 
tended the sphere of business of the firm. Their ware- 
houses were filled with fish from the Banks of Newfound- 
land, with sugar and molasses from the West Indies, with 
hemp and iron, linen and silk, from Great Britain, with 
naval stores from the Carolinas. The firm owned more 
than a hundred vessels and their name and ensign were to 
be seen in London and Bristol, in the Havannah, and at 
Charleston, in Wilmington and Boston. The fortune in- 
creased rapidly, and part of it was invested in immense 
tracts of land in Maine, where the great pine trees were 
cut and floated down the rivers, and built into ships which 
added in their turn to the wealth and prosperity of the firm 
of William Pepperrell and Son. Soon after he was twenty- 
four he established a branch of the house in Boston ; in 
1726 he was chosen representative from Kittery to the 
Massachusetts Legislature, and in the following year was 
appointed by Governor Belcher a member of the Massa- 
chusetts council. (It will be remembered that Maine was 
then a part of Massachusetts.) When hardly twenty-one 
years of age he was commissioned as a captain of a com- 
pany of cavalry, and soon after became major and lieu- 
tenant-colonel. In the same year in which he was elected 
representative to the Legislature, he was commissioned 
colonel and placed in command of all the Maine militia. 

In 1730 he was appointed by the Governor Chief Justice 
of the Court of Common Pleas for Maine, and this office 
he continued to hold until his death. Immediately upon 
his appointment he sent to London for a law library. The 



records of his court, and the testimony of all his contempo- 
raries, show that, though not bred a lawyer, he administered 
justice with firm and even hand to the entire satisfaction 
of litigants, and of the whole community. 

In 1734 his father died, and he succeeded to the business 
of the firm, and to the greater part of the large tracts of 
land in Maine, of which his father had become the owner. 
This accession to his fortune did not diminish his activity. 
He became and continued President of the Council for the 
Colony of Massachusetts. For both public and private 
reasons he resided with his family during a large part of 
every year in Boston, where his two children, Elizabeth 
and Andrew, were educated. 

Meanwhile, the politics and wars of Europe were a source 
of constant interest and apprehension to the Colonists. Eng- 
land had been at war with Spain, and the naval battles 
which the two nations, then more equally matched, fought 
for the possession of the West Indies, were a source of as 
much interest in Boston and New York, as they were in 
London and Bristol. The English were getting the better 
of the conflict, and the apprehension became general that 
Spain would seek and secure an alliance with France, and 
that the result would be a war between the allied powers 
and England, which would involve the colonies. 

In 1743, Governor Shirley received dispatches from Eng- 
land, that in all probability war would soon be declared. 
In October of that year he transmitted the intelligence to 
Colonel Pepperrell, with instructions to put the frontier im- 
mediately in a state of preparation for war. A copy of 
this, Pepperrell at once transmitted to his officers, adding: 
'T hope that He who gave us our breath will give us the 
courage and prudence to behave ourselves like true-born 
Englishmen." 

On the 15th of March, 1744, war was declared by the 
French, and hostilities at once began in Nova Scotia. The 
islands of Cape Breton and Newfoundland are on opposite 



sides of the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The 
French, in order to guard this entrance and protect their 
Canadian possessions, had erected on the island of Cape 
Breton, the great citadel of Louisburg, the strongest fortress 
in the new world. The garrison of this fortress was a con- 
stant menace to the colonists, and the fort itself was a depot 
of warlike supplies for all the French armies in Canada. 
The harbor of Louisburg was capacious, and afforded a 
safe anchorage for the French men-of-war, a place of refuge 
for their merchantmen and fishing vessels, and a convenient 
rendezvous for their privateers. Thence they sallied forth 
to ravage colonial commerce. There they sought refuge 
with their prizes.* The entrance to this harbor is 
only twelve hundred feet wide, and in the center of 
this channel is an island very similar to that on which Fort 
Sumter is built at the entrance to Charleston harbor. 

On this island the French had erected a fort and 
another was placed within range, on the northwestern side 
of the harbor; the three fortifications being thus arranged 
so as to cover each other. The ramparts were of stone, from 
thirty to thirty-six feet high, with a ditch eighty feet wide, 
and extended over a circuit of nearly two miles. The works 
had been building for nearly twenty-five years, and were 
believed to be impregnable by any force that the British 
could bring against them. 

The French had been preparing for war, and had secured 
the neutrality and possibly the alliance of many of the 
Penobscot Indians, who up to that time had been believed to 
be friendly to the English. Colonel Pepperrell went to 
them at the head of a delegation, asking for their support in 
the war, but the application was refused, the Sagamores 
stating that they would not fight against their brethren of 
St. John's and New Brunswick. No one could tell how 



*See Commemoration sermon, preached by Dr. Thomas Prince, in 
Old South Church, Boston, July 18, 1745. p. 19. Mass. Hist. Soc. 
Collection Pamphlets, Series VII. 



far this defection had extended, and the conviction became 
general in New England that, as long as this formidable 
fortress remained so near her borders, the colonists could 
never hope for security. The Legislatures of the New Eng- 
land colonies in winter session discussed plans for action, and 
sent letters to the provinces of New York, New Jersey and 
Pennsylvania. The Legislature of New York, upon Gov- 
ernor Clinton's recommendation, appropriated three thou- 
sand pounds for the expenses of the expedition, and the 
Governor at his own expense sent cannon. Pennsylvania 
sent provisions. But these colonies furnished no troops to 
the expedition which followed. The New England colonies 
were not, however, daunted, and resolved to summon all 
their forces for the attack. The immense armies that were 
raised in this country during the civil war have so ac- 
customed us to enormous hosts, that those which 
were engaged in any of our previous wars seem 
to us insignificant. The whole number of troops 
engaged in the Louisburg expedition would not have 
furnished a division to the army of the Potomac. But 
in considering the importance of the undertaking, we should 
compare these numbers with those of our earlier 
wars. Massachusetts raised for the expedition, 3,250; 
Rhode Island, 300; New Hampshire, 300, and Con- 
necticut, 500; an army larger than that with which Gen- 
eral Taylor undertook the conquest of Mexico, and nearly 
equal to that with which he won the battle of Buena Vista. 
Yet that army was raised by the whole United States at a 
time when our population was nearly ten times the population 
of the colonies at the Revolution, and more than twenty 
times that of New England in 1745. 

Not only did the colonists send an army, but they con- 
tributed a portion of the navy that sailed for Louisburg; 
fourteen vessels with 204 guns. 

When the New England Legislatures had provided for 
raising troops, the question arose, who should command 



them. A long period of peace had left the colonists without 
any officers of experience in large military manoeuvres. 
But amongst those who had commanded in the border wars 
with the Indians, there was none who possessed the con- 
fidence of the people as did William Pepperrell, and he was 
unanimously selected for the position. He was reluctant to 
accept it, and, while the matter was under consideration, 
consulted his guest, the famous George Whitefield, who was 
then on one of his missionary expeditions through New 
England. Whitefield's reply was frank. He said : "I do 
not think the scheme very promising; if you take the ap- 
pointment the eyes of all will be upon you; if you do not 
succeed, the widows and orphans of the slain will reproach 
you. n you should succeed, many will regard you with 
envy, and endeavor to eclipse your glory. You ought, there- 
fore, if you go at all, to go with a single eye, and you will 
find your strength proportioned to your necessity." 

Governor Shirley assured Pepperrell that there was no 
one else in New England, under whose leadership the colo- 
nists could be sure of raising the troops necessary for the 
purpose. He accepted in the spirit Whitefield had urged. 
He then asked the great religious leader to give him a motto 
for the colonial flag. The motto given was characteristic of 
the enterprise. It was "Nil Desperandum, Christo Duce." 
The religious spirit which had brought so many of the colo- 
nists to New England had lost none of its enthusiasm. 

The Massachusetts troops sailed on the 24th of March, 
1745, for Canso Bay, which was the place agreed upon for 
a rendezvous. Meanwhile Governor Shirley was in corre- 
spondence with Commodore Peter Warren, who commanded 
the West India fleet. He at first declined to take part in 
the expedition. The refusal was received the very day 
before Pepperrell sailed, but he was nothing daunted and 
determined to make the attempt with the colonial forces 
alone. About three weeks, however, after the arrival at 
Canso, and while the men were at work making their own 






■ cartridges (a fact which illustrates one of the differences 
between the warfare of those days and that of modern 
times), three large men-of-war loomed up on the horizon. 
These were soon discovered to be under the command of 
Commodore Warren. These ships and those that followed 
were a great accession to the colonial forces, and aided 
essentially in the blockade which contributed largely to the 
reduction of the city. The troops sailed from Canso on the 
29th of April, and arrived the next morning at Gabarus Bay. 
The precautions which Pepperrell had directed, to conceal 
the proximity of the troops from the garrison at Louisburg, 
had been entirely successful, and the first intelligence they 
h&d of the expedition was the arrival of the English and 
provincial fleet and the boats in which the soldiers rowed 
ashore. A detachment from the garrison was at once sent 
out to meet them, and on the rocky coast of the island, the 
first blood was shed in the campaign. The provincials 
effected a landing, and drove the garrison back to their 
walls. A detachment of the invading army was at once dis- 
patched to reconnoiter, and captured the royal battery on 
the northwestern side of the harbor. It had been from 
the first, part of Pepperrell's'plan to take this battery. He 
had ascertained the calibre of the guns and had balls made 
in Boston to fit them. The captured guns were speedily 
turned against the citadel. 

Meanwhile the remainder of the army landed, and the 
troops encamped in sight of the ramparts. These fortifica- 
tions, to the provincials, unused to such solid walls, seemed 
formidable indeed. Major Pomroy, of Northampton, who 
had been detailed to dig out the touchholes of the cannon 
that the French had spiked, and who afterwards com- 
manded with distinction at Lake George and Bunker Hill 
wrote to his wife: "Louisburg is an exceedingly strong 
place and seems impregnable. It looks as if our campaign 
would last long, but I am willing to stay till God's time 
comes to deliver the city into our hands." 



General Pepperrell at once undertook to concert with 
Commodore Warren a plan of campaign. But the Com- 
modore always seems to have found some good reason for 
not sending his marines to assist in an attack on the Island 
battery at the entrance to the harbor, which Pepperrell 
desired to storm, and all the combinations which the Ameri- 
can general endeavored to effect for this purpose came to 
naught. The British ships guarded the entrance to the 
harbor, and captured a number of vessels, some of which 
were laden with supplies for the garrison, and they fur- 
nished some gunners and powder for the siege guns. This 
was their contribution to the success of the enterprise. 

Colonel Gridley was assigned by Pepperrell to the erection 
of parallels and the mounting of siege guns. Thirty years 
afterwards Gridley marked out the line of the famous in- 
trenchmert of Bunker Hill. "When Gage was erecting 
breastworks across Boston Neck, the provincial troops 
sneeringly remarked that his mud walls were nothing com- 
pared with the stone walls of old Louisburg." 

The first parallel was begun about 4,600 feet from the 
northwest bastion. The provincials soon erected another 
at about half the distance from the ramparts, and 
brought into action a mortar battery which commenced a 
brisk bombardment. A constant cannonade was kept up, the 
circle of fire gradually drew closer to the city, and on the 
15th of May, a battery was finished a thousand feet from 
the west gate. The following day a discovery was made. 
Thirty cannon suitable for siege guns were found under 
water near the light-house at the entrance to the harbor, and 
a party of provincials was sent to pull them out. The fol- 
lowing night a sortie was made from the garrison with the 
purpose of driving away this detachment, but the attack was 
repulsed with slight loss. On the i8th a breach was ef- 
fected in the west gate. By this time the troops had ap- 
proached so near that conversation began to be carried on 
from the ramparts to the trenches, accompanied as the 



letters tell, with hospitable invitations to breakfast, which, 
however, for the time were refused. 

On the 20th, Warren announced the capture of the "Vigi- 
lant," a French vessel carrying sixty- four guns, and having 
on board reinforcements and military stores for the garri- 
son. Meanwhile the breach which had been made in the 
wall was gradually enlarging, and the subject of an assault 
began to be discussed between Warren and Pepperrell. The 
fleet meanwhile was increased by the arrival of ships from 
England and the West Indies. The French constructed in 
the night a battery in the breach, but this was soon silenced 
by the provincial artillery. Signals were concerted, scaling 
ladders carried to the front, storming parties were told off, 
and all was ready for an assault when, on the 15th of June, 
Governor Duchambon sent out a flag of truce. The terms 
of capitulation were agreed upon on the i6th and 17th. The 
French were to march out with the honors of war and lay 
down their arms, and it was stipulated that they should "in 
consideration of their gallant defence," be sent back to 
France. On the 17th Pepperrell marched in at the head of 
his army, and the French garrison numbering 1.960, sur- 
rendered. "Thus," says Bancroft, "did the strongest for- 
tress of North America capitulate to an army of undisci- 
plined New England mechanics and farmers and fishermen. 
It was the greatest success achieved by England during the 
war. * 

Its importance was realized in other colonies before the 
expedition sailed. James Alexander writes to Cadwallader 
Golden, New York, March 10, 1745: 

"The Boston Expedition against Gape Breton is a bold 
undertaking. If it succeed it will be the most glorious thing 
that has been done this war, and the most useful if the 
conquest can be kept, for it's the only place of Rendezvous 
that the French have to annoy the northern plantations with 
from the sea." 



♦History of the United States— Ed. 1850, Vol. Ill, p. 463. 

10 



Some historians have been disposed to attribute to good 
fortune, and not to skill, this remarkable victory. To them 
we may reply in the language of Napier* at the end of his 
account of the third siege of Badajos, This "has so often 
been adduced in evidence, that not skill, but fortune, plumed 
his (Wellington's) ambitious wing; a proceeding indeed 
most consonant to the nature of man, for it is hard to avow 
inferiority by attributing an action so stupendous to superior 
genius alone." 

The news of the capture of Louisburg was received on 
both sides of the Atlantic with the utmost joy, not un- 
mingled with surprise. The fortress was so important, the 
French had been so long engaged in its construction, the 
means employed for its reduction appeared to European 
generals so insignificant, that the success almost transcended 
belief. On this side of the Atlantic, Boston and Salem, New 
York and Philadelphia blazed with bonfires and illumina- 
tions, and resounded with the ringing of bells and the firing 
of cannon. 

The Rev. Dr. Chauncy wrote to Pepperrell from Boston 
on the fourth of July, a day which then had not the signifi- 
cance which with us it has since obtained : 

'T heartily congratulate you upon the news which we 
received yesterday about break of day, of the reduction of 
Cape Breton. The people of Boston before sunrise were 
as thick about the streets as on an election day, and a 
pleasing joy visibly set on the countenance of every one 
met with. 

"As God has made you an instrument of so much service 
to your country, at the hazard of your life, and the expense 
of great labor and fatigue, your name is deservedly and 
universally spoken of with respect, and I doubt not will 
be handed down with honor to the latest posterity. 

"We had last night the finest illumination I ever beheld 
with my eyes. I believe there was not a house in town, 
in no by-lane or alley, but joy might be seen through its 
windows. The night also was made joyful by bonfires, fire- 



*History of the Peninsular War. Am. Ed. 1842, Vol. Ill, p. 238. 



works, and all other external tokens of rejoicing; but I 
hope we shall in a better manner still commemorate the 
goodness of God in this remarkable victory obtained against 
our enemies. I hear next Thursday is set apart for a day 
of general thanksgiving through the province, and I be- 
lieve there is not a man in the country but will heartily join 
the thanksgiving to God for his appearance on our behalf." 

The contemporary accounts are too graphic not to be 
quoted : 

"Now the churl and the niggard became generous, and 
even the poor forgot their poverty ; and in the evening the 
whole town (Boston) appeared, as it were, in a blaze, almost 
every house being finely illuminated." 

"At night the whole city (New York) was splendidly il- 
luminated, and the greatest demonstration of joy appeared 
in every man's countenance upon hearing the good news." ** 

But the public rejoicings were not confined to the colonies. 
Tower Hill, Cheapside, and the Strand, were illuminated 
as well as Beacon Street and Broadway. The messenger 
who brought to London the news of the surrender received 
a present of five hundred guineas. Pepperrell was made 
a baronet, and was commissioned colonel in the British 
regular army. He was the only colonist who before the 
Revolution received either distinction. 

Pepperrell remained in command at Louisburg until 1746, 
and here the Legislature of Massachusetts sent him an 



**New York Weekly Post Boy, July 15, 1745. 

In the same paper, a week later, the local poet thus gave 
expression to the general jubilation: 

ON THE TAKING OF CAPE BRETON. 

When glorious Anne Britannia's sceptre swayed, 
And Lewis strove all Europe to invade, 
Great Marlborough then, in Blenheim's hostile fields, 
With Britain's sons, o'erthrew the Gallic shields. 

The Western world and Pepperrell now may claim 
As equal honor and as lasting fame; 
And Warren's merit will in story last, 
'Till future ages have forgot the past. 



address, congratulating him and his officers and soldiers, and 
tendering the grateful acknowledgments of the colony for 
their important services. 

In 1746, Sir William returned to Boston, and was re- 
elected President of the Council, which was then in session. 
He and Sir Peter Warren received a public reception from 
the Legislature, which was also in session, and on the 
fifth of July, Sir William left the city for his country seat 
at Kittery. His journey thither was like a royal progress. 
He was received at the different towns at which he stopped, 
by companies of mounted troops, and was welcomed every- 
where with military salutes, illuminations and festivities. 

In 1749 he visited England and was received with marked 
distinction. After his return, and in 1753, he conducted 
important negotiations with the Indians of Maine. In 1754 
he received orders to raise a regiment of foot for the royal 
service, and while in New York on military business in 
1755, received a commission as major-general in the British 
regular army. Jealousy on the part of Governor Shirley 
kept him from service in the field at that time, but he exerted 
himself actively to raise troops for the war then going on 
with the French, and he was entrusted with the command of 
the forces which guarded the frontiers of Maine and New 
Hampshire. Just as the war began to be successful, on 
the sixth of July, 1759, he died. 

In closing this memorial we respectfully submit that 
colonials are justly entitled to larger representation in the 
Hall of Fame. It was said of them that "God sifted a 
whole nation to plant seed in the American Wilderness." 

We owe to them : 

1. The conversion of a wilderness into fruitful fields, 
the establishment of manufactures, the development of 
commerce. 

2. The successful struggle with the French and Indians 
who from Canada to Louisiana, sought by a chain of forts 
to confine the English colonists to the Atlantic seacoast. 

13 



In the course of this conflict, the colonists became a force 
in European politics. They took part in the war of Aus- 
trian Succession and the Seven Years' War, the great 
struggle which England, assisted by the armies of Frederick 
the Great, waged with France and Austria for supremacy 
in Europe, in America and India. 

3. The colonists achieved a certain amount of refine- 
ment and cultivation in their commercial centers, and 
fostered both art and learning. 

Of the religious and theological side of this learning, 
Jonathan Edwards is a representative in the Hall of Fame. 
William Pepperrell, too, was deeply religious, as his writ- 
ings clearly show. He was free from narrowness and 
bigotry and chose for the name of the Church in Kittery 
which his father and he aided to establish — not any denom- 
inational name but — The Church of Christ. He was a 
warm friend of Edwards, who, in 175 1, was missionary to 
the Stockbridge Indians, and procured £700 to aid him in 
that work. 

Pepperrell was also conspicuous in all the other fields 
in which the colonies manifested their greatness. 

First, as a colonizer. His estates were larger than those 
of any other American, except some of the royal patentees 
such as William Penn. He erected large lumber mills at 
Saco and Scarboro, whence he brought the timber used in 
his shipyards at Kittery. No other colonist had such large 
commercial interests. This wealth and power were pro- 
duced by the energy of Pepperrell and Son, the father 
having come to this country without a shilling. William 
Pepperrell could ride from his home in Kittery to Saco, 
without going ofif his own estates. No American showed 
more power and energy in subduing the wilderness and 
bringing commerce to our shores. He advanced for the 
Louisburg Expedition £5,000, a princely gift for those days, 
£2,000 more than the colony of New York supplied. Four 
hundred men enlisted from his own town of Kittery. 

14 



Second. Kittery was a border town, and "Pepperrell's 
Fort" in that town was a military outpost. Sir William, 
as we have seen, was from his earliest years commander of 
the militia of Maine, As Stevens says of him — "The 
youth smelled powder before he reached his teens." Not 
only by arms, but also by wise negotiations, he protected 
the colonists from Indian incursions. 

He was the most conspicuous figure in America 
during the war of the Austrian Succession and the Seven 
Years' War, and thus achieved a greater international rep- 
utation than any American prior to the Revolution. His 
achievements at Louisburg have been fully referred to. At 
the beginning of the Seven Years' War, he was appointed 
by the Crown a major-general and was efficient and suc- 
cessful in the work entrusted to him by the Newcastle 
ministry. But the campaign generally was unfortunate. 
When Pitt came into power he sent over two efficient gen- 
erals, Amherst and Wolfe, and gave Pepperrell the chief 
command in the colonies, appointing him a lieutenant general 
in the Royal Army. H^ad it not been for sickness he would 
have taken the field, and actively shared the glories of 
Quebec and the capture of Fort Duquesne, The plan of 
the campaign which led to the overthrow of the French sway 
in Canada, and prepared the way for the American revolu- 
tion, was fought according to the plans laid down by Pep- 
perrell. 

Third. No house in the colonies was more the center of 
culture than his. He was the patron of men of letters, and 
the benefactor of American colleges. 

We would gladly present him to you as he appeared in 
the old State House, in the Hancock mansion in Boston, or 
in his own home at Kittery ; as Copley and Smybert have 
depicted him on canvas ; the well-knit frame, clad in the 
embroidered waistcoat and scarlet coat of the period, the 
regular features, oval face, the kindly but resolute eye, the 
manly carriage. 

IS 



A fisherman's son, he raised himself to honor and wealth. 
Although not bred a lawyer, he presided with ability as 
Chief Justice. Although not trained a soldier, he com- 
manded the armies of the colonies with courage, fortitude, 
foresight and success. No record has ever leaped to light 
that casts a shadow upon his memory. Just and upright in 
all his own dealings, he knew how to be generous and 
merciful to others ; fearless and resolute himself, he knew 
how to encourage the wavering, and stimulate the doubting. 
He was politic without insincerity, liberal and hospitable 
without extravagance. 

The one controlling purpose of his life was duty. 
He became in youth a member of the Congrega- 
tional Church, and continued a devout and consistent 
adherent to its principles. But he was free from that 
narrowness and bigotry that disfigure the character of some 
of the New England colonial leaders. At home and abroad, 
in the counting-house and the Legislature, on the Bench or 
in command of the provincial army, he embodied in action 
the religious conviction that became in youth an essential 
part — indeed, the foundation of his whole character. Per- 
haps the best evidence of this is that prosperity never made 
him arrogant, or marred the simplicity and straightforward- 
ness of the man. And thus, to the day of his death, he en- 
joyed alike the confidence of the Indians in the Maine for- 
ests, the British Governors sent to rule the provinces, the 
merchants of Boston and London, the aristocracy of Beacon 
Street, and his neighbors at Kittery. 



i6 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Life of Sir William Pepperrell — Usher Parsons. 

The Louisburg Memorial — Society of Colonial Wars 1896. 

Dictionary of National Biography — Leslie Stephen, Vol. 
I4> P- 352 ; Title — William Pepperrel. 

Appleton's Encyclopaedia of American Biography — Vol. 
4, p. 721 ; Title — William Pepperrell. 

Narrative and Critical History of America — Justin Win- 
sor Louisburg Expedition. Vol. 5, Chapter 18. 

The Taking of Louisburg — Samuel A. Drake. Boston — 
Lee and Shepard. 

New York Genealogical and Biographical Record — Sir 
William Pepperrell — Vol. 18, p. 98. 

New England Magazine — Sir William Pepperrell and 
the capture of Louisburg — Vol. 12, p. 415. 

Journal of the Siege of Louisburg — James Gibson. 

New England Magazine — At the Siege of Louisburg — 
Vol. 37, p. 72. 

Naval and Military Heroes — Bohn, pp. 121, 166. 

Belknap's History of New Hampshire — Vol. 2, p. 158 
et seq. 

London Magazine — July 2t„ 1745, August 3, 1745. 

Magazine of American History — John Austin Stevens — 
Sir William Pepperrell. Vol. 2, p. 673. 

Gordon's History of America — Vol. i, p. no ct seq. 

Journal and Letters — Curwen; pp. 602, 621. 

Collections — Massachusetts Historical Society, ist series. 
Vol. I, pp. 4-60. 

Proceedings — Massachusetts Historical Society (1903). 
Vol. 17, p. 27, 

Collections — New York Historical Society. 

Collections — New York State Library, Albany, N. Y. 

17 



Half Century of Conflict — Parkman. Vol. 2, p. 72 et seq. 

Modern History — Cambridge — Vol. 7, pp. 114-116. 

History of United States. Bancroft — Vol. 3, Chap. 24. 

History of Massachusetts — Hutchinson — Vol. 2, Chap. 4. 

History of United States of North America — Grahame — 
Vol. 3, p. 265 et seq. 

Neglected Chapter of Colonial History: James Gibson 
Johnson; Harpers Monthly. January, 1904. 

The statements in the foregoing memorial are the result 
of a very careful examination made by me of these au- 
thorities and particularly of the contemporary accounts, 
many of them in manuscript, in the collections of the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society, New York Historical Society 
and the New York State Library. 

It will be observed that in some of the statements, and 
particularly those relating to the careful preparations made 
for the expedition and the skill with which it was conducted, 
we differ somewhat from the current accounts. It is not 
surprising that a person making a special study of the life 
of an individual, or an enterprise in which he was engaged, 
should make a more thorough investigation of that 
subject than a historian of the century. 

Everett P. Wheeler. 



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